“Arab Trade” and Iraq’s commitment to the agricultural calendar

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“Arab Trade” and Iraq’s commitment to the agricultural calendar

Saturday 15 January 2022 129

 

 Baghdad: morning

 

The Executive Secretariat of the National Committee for Facilitating Transport and Trade in the ESCWA Region discussed, in a meeting of the Implementation and Follow-up Committee of the Greater Arab Free Trade Zone, which was held at the headquarters of the League of Arab States, the reality of the agricultural calendar in Iraq and the extent of the commitment of the Ministry of Agriculture to implement it.

The committee is the highest mechanism for following up the implementation of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area after the Economic and Social Council.

The meeting dealt with a set of important items and topics, most notably the issue of the agricultural calendar in Iraq.

The Iraqi delegation indicated the importance of discussing the issue in the next meeting. The meeting also circulated the message of the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Iraq to the League of Arab States, which indicated the statement of the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, that one of the tasks of its work is to protect and preserve the local agricultural product and this is what is done in all countries of the world.

The ministry affirmed its commitment to implementing the agricultural calendar (opening and preventing imports in light of the abundance and scarcity of local products), stressing that “the rights of peasants and farmers to dispose of their agricultural products cannot be ignored, and that the percentage of workers in the agricultural sector constitutes 30% of the population.”

The committee stressed Iraq's keenness to strengthen inter-trade relations with Arab countries, through which countries were able to export their goods to Iraq during the period of opening imports. It is noteworthy that the Economic and Social Council, by its Resolution No. 1350 dated 12/2/1998, set 5 bases and criteria for preparing the agricultural calendar, including, first, that agricultural commodities be produced under traditional natural conditions, and these commodities do not include those that are produced outside the natural production seasons using technologies. Various protected agricultural, in which production conditions are controlled, and then production is possible during the whole year. These technologies include, for example, greenhouses, plastic houses, tunnels covered with plastic sheets and other methods.

 Also, commodities that are subject to transformational operations in their raw form are not included in the agricultural calendar. In all cases, the customs item of the commodity must be specified, in accordance with the Harmonized System (HS) at a level (6 digits) and so that the specifications of this commodity, when selected, match the specifications of the item specific to the commodity. The production periods for agricultural commodities specified in the Arab agricultural calendar must represent peak production seasons.

It does not extend to cover the entire period of harvest, harvest or collection of the crop. The peak seasons for a single commodity can be multiple if it is produced in different climatic regions within a country, provided that the number of commodities in the country’s agricultural calendar does not exceed 10 commodities, and the sum of peak production periods for the list of countries does not exceed 45 months, and the maximum period for the sum of peak production periods for any commodity is 7 months in the year. The fourth point states that the Arab agricultural calendar does not include all kinds of leafy vegetables, given that most of these vegetables are produced over successive short (seasons) periods throughout the year. The agricultural calendar does not include commodities that have no equivalent produced in other Arab countries. At the end of its work, the committee submitted a final report on the results of its work and recommendations, which it prepared to the next session of the Arab Economic and Social Council.